Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) - Mitchell's big rock musical blow-out

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John Cameron Mitchell's platinum blonde title character sings her heart out on this poster for his Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hansie, an East-German boy, grows up to become a beautiful female rock singer in the West, who tours with her band, all the while the bitter breakdown of her relationship with young rock phenomenon Tommy pains and affects everything.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is written and directed by great Texan filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole (2010)), whose debut it is. It is based on Mitchell and Stephen Trask's (The Savages (2007, score)) same-titled 1998 musical.
It is a fantastically distinctive and memorable film with some delightful songs, hair, makeup and costumes. - And an intense Mitchell in his own title role. Michael Pitt (Dawson's Creek (1999-00)) is also a star in the making as Tommy.
What can be criticized about this very stylishly assertive film, - which in fact can feel somewhat like watching a 90-minute, great music video, - is that it elevates Hedwig's narcissism and makes it its own, refusing to take interest in anything besides her limited, self-centered and overly dramatic world. This especially hurts the film's inauspicious ending.

Related posts:

 

John Cameron Mitchell: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Rabbit Hole (2010) - Kidman and Eckhart shine in Mitchell's excellent drama 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 3.6 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.6 times its cost)
[Hedwig and the Angry Inch premiered 19 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in Ontario, including Toronto, from July - August 2000. Most of the lead vocals were recorded live. Pitt reportedly ate onion and garlic prior to his prolonged kissing scene with Mitchell out of discomfort. The film opened #28 to a 156k $ first weekend in 9 theaters in North America, were it peaked at #23 and in 101 theaters (different weeks), grossing 3 mil. $ (83.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were South Korea with 286k $ (7.9 %) and France with 94k $ (2.6 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival, was nominated for 5 Independent Spirit awards, won a National Board of Review award, 2 awards at Sundance and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Mitchell returned with Shortbus (2006) as a filmmaker and as an actor in Girls (2013-14)). Hedwig and the Angry Inch is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hedwig and the Angry Inch?

Funny Games (2007) - Haneke recreates his strong critique of movie violence consumption for the American audience

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+ Best Home Invasion Thriller of the Year

Naomi Watts has been in better shape (but also worse, in a few cases) than on this confrontational, unsettling poster for Michael Haneke's Funny Games

A harmonic married couple are sought out in their idyllic summerhouse by two young men, who torment them and their young son as a part of their 'funny games'.

Funny Games is written and directed by great German filmmaker Michael Haneke (Hidden/Caché (2005)) and is a shot-by-shot remake of his impactful original Funny Games (1997), which was made in Austria.
This US replication of the unforgettable work has only altered very little from the scenario. The original film for some reason has a stronger impact, I find, because the couple are German-speaking, and the language comes out a bit quicker and more naturally. That aside the new Funny Games is a successful remake, and it is a testament to Haneke's almost insane artistic consequence that he recreates his most creep-out unpleasant film this meticulously.
Funny Games gives us violence-desensitized audiences a sobering slap across the face. The new ensemble of actors all perform well; Naomi Watts (Chuck (2016)) again shows her talent for portraying awfully afflicted females (as seen also in great film such as Mulholland Dr. (1999), 21 Grams (2003) and The Impossible/Lo Imposible (2012).)

Related posts:

Michael Haneke: 2012 in films - according to Film Excess
Amour (2012) - Tender love, unseizing death in Haneke's pictures
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Hidden/Caché (2005) - Haneke's slick, cold surveillance drama-thriller 

Watch a trailer for the film with Spanish subtitles here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 7.9 mil. $ 
= Huge flop (returned 0.52 times its cost)
[Funny Games premiered 20 October (London Film Festival, UK) and runs 111 minutes. Haneke has said that he wanted to make the original film in the US, but was not practically able to at the time. Instead the set from the 1997 film was meticulously recreated for the new film. Shooting took place in New York in and around September 2006. The film opened #21 to a 544k $ first weekend in 286 theaters in North America, where it added two more cinemas in its 2nd week but only lessened in rank, grossing 1.2 mil. $ (15.2 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was Italy with 2.1 mil. $ (26.6 %); North America was the 2nd biggest, and France was the 3rd biggest with 1 mil. $ (12.7 %). Haneke returned with The White Ribbon/Das Weiße Band - Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009). Watts returned in The International (2009), Tim Roth (The Con Is On (2018)) in Virgin Territory (2007), and Michael Pitt (Criminal Activities (2015)) in 4 video, TV and a bit part credits before he reclaimed the major screen again in Seven Psychopaths (2012). Funny Games is rotten at 51 % with a 5.64/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Funny Games?

Boardwalk Empire - season 1 (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats

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1 Film Excess win:

Best Production Design

2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Production Design (won)
Best TV-series (lost to Treme S1)

+ Best Gangster Movie/TV-series of the Year
+ Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Michael Pitt

Protagonist Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson played by Steve Buscemi heads inland in Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

The 12 episode 1st season of the HBO series starts at the beginning of Prohibition, which seems to mostly evade Atlantic City, where the show takes place, in a sense, (namely that they keep on drinking, now just illegally distilled and distributed liquor.) The city's gangster treasurer, Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson arranges the booze smuggling and profits from it, as well as from other illegal and legal enterprises in the tourist-heavy, coastal spa city. 
The following will contain SPOILERS.

Wonderful, heightened reality HD character poster for Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

The series starts with strength in the 73 minute long first episode directed by Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)), which became the costliest pilot ever produced at 18 mil. $: Thompson underling Jimmy Darmody (the brilliant Michael Pitt (Rob the Mob (2014))) is tempted by the FBI, while the violent husband of Irish immigrant Margaret Schroeder is killed as a scapegoat for a smuggling operation gone haywire. The pilot is almost over-filled with introductory stuff, stuff happening, - just LOTS of stuff to keep track of. It had to establish the whole series for other directors to follow, so they could emulate Scorsese's style. It succeeds in catching you, and just might confuse you a bit, too. In the following episodes, the pace luckily slows down a bit, as we get to know the characters better and better.

Michael Pitt and Steve Buscemi in Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

Nucky's brother is the sheriff of AC, and is bitterly subordinated to his triumphant brother. Darmody, after some stupidities, goes into exile in Chicago, where he joins a bloody partnership with the young Al Capone and sees his lover get her face slashed open as retribution. After getting even with the help of a new acquaintance with a war disability, Darmody returns home to AC, while FBI agent Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) whips himself and tries to (metaphorically) force a boulder up a mountain with his professional and personal goal: To enforce Prohibition in the city. Thompson's top-distiller, the black Chalky White is also his entrance to the city's big, African-American population, whom he needs at election-time.
The very high quality level of the series is held, as women attain the right to vote, and Darmody unwittingly scares his girlfriend's bisexual friend-couple away at his homecoming, where he also succeeds in ending the slow poisoning of his father, the city's retired 'Commodore'.
Agent Nelson's insanity culminates in his drowning of his subordinate at a Baptist church mass baptism, and he then receives a sign that he has to stay and continue his impossible job in AC, opposing his wife's begging. (The 'sign' being that he has impregnated a whore there, the former lover of Enoch, Lucy Danziger (Paz de la Huerta)).
Shroeder appears to want to stay with Nucky, thus compromising her own ethics and moral.
In the end we get what we are hoping for: A little romance. After all the stiff whiskys; dark, hard and prone to tragedy, as the series is.
Boardwalk Empire is a lavish, tragically swinging 1920's Sopranos (1999-2007) in its best moments. Incredibly well-produced, succulent and brilliantly casted. Michael Stuhlbarg (Men in Black 3 (2012)) and Kelly Macdonald (In the Electric Mist (2009)) as Schroeder are also excellent, and they all have their places well behind the show's seasoned, great lead, played by Steve Buscemi (The Sopranos (2004-06)) in the biggest role of his career.
This is a grand and crazy-good series. - Get it!
It is created by Terence Winter, who also produced many Sopranos episodes, and directed one, Walk Like a Man (2007), and has written a lot; Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), 25 (!) Sopranos episodes (2000-07) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) to name some of it. He has now written and will produce an untitled HBO rock 'n roll TV movie that Scorsese is set to direct. The film is cast.

Best episodes:

Episode 5: Nights in Ballygran
The series shows its dark face again around St. Patrick's Day, wherein Schroeder and her Women's Temperance League confront the reality of the city, and an unexpected romance between her and Enoch starts.

Episode 8: Hold Me in Paradise
The highpoint in the series to this point: The sheriff gets shot in the fight against the incoming Italian hoodlums, and the election is determined.

Related posts:

Martin Scorsese:  The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - A helluva movie! (Written by Terence Winter)
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic 
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants 

What do you think of Boardwalk Empire?